Dark Crossroads
by jenskott
Summary: What could have happened if Jean hadn't died on the Moon.


  
  
Dark Crossroads  
  
Author: Jenskott Summary: What could have happened if Jean wouldn't have died in the Moon.  
Notes: This tale spins off Uncanny X-Men issue #138. Like always in my stories, Jean Grey and Phoenix always was the same person, and there isn't such thing like the Phoenix Force.  
Rating: PG. Sort of.  
Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel. But theirs owners make nothing good with them, so it's up to writers like me.  
Feedback: To Please, send your comments. Especially if you want pointing me mistakes in spelling or grammar. I need improve my English.  
  
She was running away.  
  
Her thoughts were a crazy jumble of sensations, remembrances, feelings and reasons. She only retained a patchwork of visions, glimmers of a cascade of events was rushing towards its predicted, fated end.  
  
She barely remembered to Scott and herself emerging out of their refuge to the last stand against the Imperial Guard. Scott blasting them with his beams, she throwing boulders and scrambling theirs minds, both were a great team. And then Scott had been struck, and she saw him falling on the floor. Motionless, perhaps dead. Something into her snapped. Her vision turned red and her mind clouded with a thick haze of inhumane rage. A high-pitched raptor shriek burst out of her mouth, and her mortal self erupted in flames. The shockwave of incandescent, hot-melting blazes of orange light and red fire blasted upwards, swatting to the Guardsmen, lightning up half moon and unleashing a monstrous energy beam obliterated the half of the Lilandra's mothership and lost in the deep space afterwards.  
  
An she was there, alone and atop of the world, drunk in power and thirsty of it, burning in flames only for being reborn and burning again. She glanced up at the destroyed ship, making out its shape amidst the ocean of liquid flames, knowing what the insects were thinking. What all were thinking. Look after her even sacrificing the entire galaxy. Her head arched back and she laughed, appalled and amused with their stupidity. They were only dust specks. Her sight lowered to the moonland, observing the fallen bodies. She had forgotten the reason, but they aroused an unquenchable wrath on her. Those insects, that dirt, that arrogant and sanctimonious NOTHING had stricken and harmed to Scott-  
  
Scott? Who was Scott? What meant that name? Name? They were merely several sounds put together. No, a name. The someone's name. The man loved to Jean. Jean? Who was Jean? SHE WAS JEAN! No, that Jean was human, she was a goddess. She couldn't be Jean. A human wouldn't have slaughtered five billions of persons in one stroke, like if they were less than stardust, only because she was starving-  
  
She listened again to the scream of five billion of souls dying. Remorse, grief, pain, and the horrible realization of having enjoyed it, rocked her with a guilt tore her in pieces, wrenched her heart, and woke her to her nightmare. She moaned, turning vulnerable. And the X-Men, her friends, hit her, just like she knew they would do. She begged them stop her, punish her, kill her, end up the pain here and now. But he had screamed in denial and hurt and loss, and she had felt power creeping in her, building up, whispering temptations in her ear. Thus she ran.  
  
He was reaching her, too fast, too soon. She spun around swiftly and halted him with less than a thought, wrapping him in a golden-glowing, telekinetic bubble. He was frozen in the air.  
  
She approached, knowing he was taking in her dark suit, blood red with pale-golden boots, gloves, sash and bird-like emblem on chest. Her long mane of fire floated on the light air of the Blue Area of the Moon. Her face was smooth and gorgeous, but darkened with shadows and anguish. The glow of the fire displayed her beauty. Ethereal, vaporous, like the bird she personified, but shaded and unholy.  
  
"The choice never was yours. You see, Scott? I told you actually." Her voice was fatalistic and her tone sinister. "Jean to Phoenix to Dark Phoenix- a progression as inevitable as death."  
  
She stepped slowly towards him, ache engraved on her face. She could peer into his mind, she knew he was catching on her intentions. And his heart was bleeding.  
  
"You of all people should to know better than anyone how I am feeling me, through the psionic rapport we share, tying us together." She croaked "I'm scared, Scott. I'm hanging on by my fingernails. I can feel the Phoenix within me, taking over. Part of me...welcomes it."  
  
She neared furthest to him, and Scott could see her green irises gazing him with longing and regret, and listen to her heart thumping madly in her chest. Her next words were said in a rush.  
  
"You want me to fight? I have. I am...With all my strength. But I can't forget that I killed an entire world -five billion people- as casually, as unthinkingly, as you would crumble a piece of paper. I want no more deaths on my conscience." Her eyes darted for a split-second at a laser cannon, in an alley. "Your way, I'd have to stay completely in control of myself every second of every day for the rest of my immortal life."  
  
Her telekinesis set off the weapon. She could see the murder glow of particles focusing and pulsating in its pipes. She was ready. Hesitantly her hand brushed tenderly the left cheek of the man had stood up for her through this entire mess. Intending with that mere brush transmitting him all her love, her passion, her entire self, and hoping he didn't blame to himself for this.  
  
What she hadn't noticed was Scott had followed the trajectory of her eyes when she looked away, and had seen the cannon. There were very little things his mutant eyesight missed. Especially objects in motion.  
  
"Maybe I could do it. But if I slipped, even for an instant, if I... failed... If even one more person died at my hands..." Her eyes glinted, and that final admission steeled her resolve. She was nearly ready. Her mind only needed endure a few seconds more, and she'd pass away as a human being. "It's better this way. Quick. Clean. Final."  
  
"I love you, Scott." She whispered. Because it was true. Because he had to know. Because he couldn't doubt it ever. "A part of me will always be with you."  
  
"NO!" He cried, and reacted in the only way he could. He managed folding one of his fingers rather to poke on the glove's button opened his visor. The quartz screen slid up, and a discharge of crushing energy was unleashed onward. Shocked and surprised, Jean raised a swift kinetic shield, which deflected effectively the beam.  
  
The red ray collided straight on the cannon, blowing it up in pieces. The shredded remnants crumbled down heavily, and scattered throughout the barren floor.  
  
Startled with the unexpected twist of events, Jean forgot keep her telekinetic cocoon. The amber bubble burst noiselessly, and Scott dropped onward, slumping over the redhead woman. Apparently his legs had melt in jelly. She held his body awkwardly, and her green orbs gazed at him in puzzlement. Vacillation and uncertainty swam and swirled in her mind, so resolved and steadfast a second earlier.  
  
He knew it. He had anticipated to her intentions and had plotted a strategy in advance as always. He imagined she would put up the shield and the beam would go in the correct direction.  
  
What could she do now? She was resolute to suicide herself, but now she felt less determined. Maybe she had lost her opportunity. A part of her, turning stronger each second, rejected the very concept of it. She didn't want dying. But she deserved-  
  
Voices came from the outside, followed with echoes of rushed footsteps. She gasped, scared, and suddenly wished vanishing from that site.  
  
So her mind just did.  
  
One split-second later she was sheltered behind a pile of jagged and squared boulders layered with dust from eons. From that collapsed wall, an improvised parapet, she observed to the X-Men bursting into the archway through the shaft on the building.  
  
As she contemplated them, darkened with the light flowed inwards, she thought in submitting willingly. Surrender and get punished. Warn she was over here. Instead of that, she automatically projected a mirage of Scott kneeled at the ground, sobbing his heart out, in front of a smoking, irregular patch of blackened ashes onto charred, red-hot stone. Her telepathy added creatively a reeking and piercing stench of roasted human flesh, fairly convincing to deceive to Logan.  
  
A tiny voice in her, each time fainter, screamed, horrified with the lie. She was manipulating her friends' minds, violating their thoughts by an egoist whim. Her conscience, her moral, ordered her stop.  
  
She quelled it down. She didn't cease the illusion, didn't stand up and step forward, didn't disrupt the spell. She remained squatted and hidden as 'Scott' wove a suicide tragic tale and they mourned her.  
  
The X-men trudged out of that place, gloom thick on them, dragging with them a grief-stricken 'Scott'. Jean remained camouflaged as they left the archway. Now she was alone. Figuratively as well as literally.  
  
Her moment of weakness had passed. Scott had ruined her try of dying as a human, and her choice had gone away. She wouldn't forfeit now her life, despite of the guilt and sorrow swallowing her whole. Inwardly she shouted in denial, terribly scared. But not as scared as she should. Jean was no longer.  
  
Only Dark Phoenix was left. And she'd live not matter what. She wouldn't sacrifice to herself. She deserved die, but she got too many reasons to keep on living. She had seen what was in the other side, and it frightened her. She wanted feeling the love, the hatred, the joy, the sorrow, the rage, the pain. From today on she would take whatever she wished. Including the man whose head was resting on her knees and hers powers had subconsciously slept. He was hers.  
  
Her side human would have tried justifying to herself. She had resurrected once, could do it again anyhow. She was linked to the M'Kraan Glass, and who knows what her death would do it. Suicide was the coward's way, the easiest option instead of facing her crimes. She had agreed be subjected to trial and she had won it. But she didn't. Because she really felt nonchalance, a frosty numbness bordered in contempt.  
  
Still the human left on her hadn't died, strangled among the perceptions, wishes and passions of the goddess. Like Scott claimed, the Jean who loved to Scott and her teammates, the Earthwoman who fought over a dream and respected the life, was a fundamental base of hers. Her core. She couldn't get stripped from herself. And she wondered what she would do now what her friends believed her dead.  
  
Eight years later. New York City.  
  
The city was shrouded in sinister shadows in spite of the Sun had dawned long ago. A fleet of massive stellar ships was covering the sky and obstructing the sunrays. Black and shining ships, of thick blindage, resembling a large swarm of beetles had settled over the buildings. There were so many, as sand grains on a beach, hovering with an ominous silence and spread everywhere as a raven stormcloud. Frigates, cruises, corvettes, vessels, aircrafts, flights, supply ships, motherships. With shape of bird, of insect, of skate, of starfish. Everyone laying siege to the Earth. Watching, observing, waiting.  
  
Far below, on the narrowest alleys, where the sunlight hardly touches the pavement, a figure sprinted swiftly among toppled trash bins and armies of rats, its arms by its sides and a flaring stream of hair flapping behind her. Protected on the shadows the skyscrapers cast, the person lurked behind corners and lampposts, glaring balefully at the invaders from the outer space.  
  
"Shi'Ar, Kree, Skrull. Three vast intergalactic empires have joined theirs forces to kill me, a single woman. So much attention." She muttered sarcastically, brushing her red strands with one hand. "I was beginning to feel unloved."  
  
Damn them. She had always been prudent and cautious, but she had really needed vent. That star burnt on a solar system uninhabited since two hundred millions of years ago, and was about of going nova and exploding anyhow. It was a little moment of hungry weakness, but it had been enough.  
  
Jean stepped forward, observing attentively the battleships overhead. Although her organic eyes couldn't see it, she knew the fleet was really spread throughout the entire planet, as a cloud of doom. And the greater part of the armada was soaring around the Earth, filling this corner of the solar system.  
  
Swirling gusts of icy wind blew along the alleys, carrying a numbing and frozen stench of fear. A dreadful and weighed silence pervaded the city. Right now the streets were deserted. Jean recalled, idly, the paranoia had brought about a radio program, several decades ago. They had read a sci-fi novel as if it was a news broadcast, and theirs audience had taken it seriously. People had collapsed streets and roads, scared out of theirs wits, struggling to run away from the Martians. But here and now people sheltered in theirs homes, turned several times the key in the lock, and crawled under their beds.  
  
Part of her was sickened at that cowardliness, ducking theirs heads and waiting the troubles disappeared without doing anything, without struggle or self-defense. Another part of her pitied them, since they were helpless, confronted by a force they couldn't understand and had no hope of surviving against.  
  
She shook off her head, cutting her reverie. She had a lot of job.  
  
The bulk of the armada was stationed around of the Earth, navigating and maneuvering among Moon and Mars, and orbiting around the three captain ships watched the planet. Aboard the Skrull ship traveled the Empress herself, as green as anybody of her race, frowning on the blue world. On the dock of the Kree ship Ronan the Accuser, delegate for the Supreme Intelligence to survey the skirmish, fingering thoughtfully his gavel-like weapon.  
  
And on board of the Shi'Ar battleship, Lilandra, Majestrix of the empire, sailed along endless corridors, oblivious to the surrounding mayhem and the soldiers bowed her before scampering. She walked absent-minded, with her cloak sweeping the floor behind her, and wearing a forlorn and regretful expression. The avian woman strode as far as an armored hatch, heavily guarded by several armed sentinels. Both kneeled respectfully, and one of them taped on the electronic lockpad, allowing to the door slid open.  
  
Lilandra stepped quietly in one chamber filled with weird and glowing devices, and large monitors filling a wall. Scenes of the Earth were displayed on them, and likewise the faces of her allies. Though the boisterous, bloodthirsty Ronan, or the quiet and haughty Skrull didn't matter her. Her eyes looked over her Terran prisoners. They had needed months of planning, spying and pulling strings, but the threesome had agreed the invasion would be impossible unless they were neutered.  
  
Jailed on the chamber and guarded by Guardsmen were the Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman with the son of both, Human Torch and The Thing; the Avengers: Thor, IronMan, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, The Vision, Quicksilver, Hawkeye, Yellowjacket and Wasp; and the X-Men: Ororo, Logan, Piotr, Kurt, Kitty, Rogue, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Havok, Polaris and Charles.  
  
She lowered her head, abashed. She could sense theirs eyes pinned on her. She could FEEL the X-men's betrayed stares demanding, pleading, asking. She imagined their hurt, their affliction, weighing on her chest. But she was the Empress, and she did what needed be done. She steeled to herself, and lifted her sight.  
  
Charles was struggling against the static field that froze his body, but it didn't even quiver. Panting with the effort, since his body wasn't young or fit, he stared to his former lover.  
  
"Lilandra. Why?" He pleaded. "Our planet has never done you any harm." She shivered with that sorrowful tone, but she hid that weakness beneath layers of ironed determination and implacability.  
  
"I'm sorry, Charles. I truly regret this, although you can think otherwise. The X-Men saved the universe, stopped the civil war on the Empire, gave me the crown and saved me from the Brood. I'm indebted forever with you, but... My words of long ago stand: Phoenix must die so the cosmos can live."  
  
The whole X-Men gasped at those words, and stared at her with disbelief written on their stunned expressions. "P-phoenix? But she's-"  
  
"Alive" Ronan bristled dryly from his monitor. The blue-skinned Kree glanced at them with evil glimmering in his eyes, and sniffed haughtily. "You really ignored that, buffoons? Your archaic race is truly pitiful."  
  
"It's enough" Lilandra cut him sharply, and ignored the venomous leer the affronted general shot her. "Since the Logan's wedding, when I saw to Scott with the splitting portrait from the Devil, I was suspicious. Despite of her name and your vouching, suspects arose within me. And although I was never sure, I let my doubts lie asleep, until some... facts happened, stirring back my concerns. My spies investigated secretly that woman, and they're downright sure. Phoenix lives again."  
  
The X-Men mulled slowly over the words they had just listened. Unbelieving their ears. Jean, alive? But it couldn't be true. They recalled with stark, bleak, cruel clarity the Moon's events. All right, they hadn't admittedly witnessed her demise or seen her corpse. But they had seen to Scott grieving, hurt beyond repair. And moreover they had seen her face warred with pain and dampened with bitter tears, as she begged her execution. They had heard the REAL regret and lament and sorrow lacing her voice. Neither of them had, not for a single instant, questioned she had committed suicide.  
  
But above all, Jean Grey was a dear friend, an excellent partner, a hopeless love even. And Lilandra was telling them not only she had lived through it letting them grieving for nothing, but also she had pretended on theirs faces being other person and they hadn't noticed. Wait a moment, they had wondered...  
  
Ororo was the first one got back her voice. "It can't be. Ms. Madelyne can't-"  
  
The distorted and hoarse voice of the Skrull Empress cut off her protest. "The female you named Madelyne Prior isn't anything but a farce, a hoax, a mask forged by the Dark Phoenix to hide of the justice." She paused momentarily, studying theirs reactions. "You were right, Lilandra. They weren't collaborating with her. They just ignored it."  
  
Warren shook off his head, biting his lips till drawing blood. During the fight he had received a hammer blow on his skull and he'd decided he was still asleep. And dreaming one nightmare. "Are you crazy, Lil?" He uttered. "Do you want us believe Scott got married with one woman without knowing she was her late girlfriend? Or he knew and didn't tell us anything?"  
  
Lilandra frowned. Still she ignored the off-hand insult. Despite her stinging Empress pride, she understood this was very hard to absorb. "Scott-"  
  
Of sudden the throaty, rough voice of Gladiator blared on the intercom. "Gladiator, general of the Imperial Guard, solicits your permission to enter with the last prisoner."  
  
"You are allowed come in, Gladiator." She replied, turning at the hatch. The metal panels slid open again, and Gladiator sauntered in the room. Several soldiers followed him, leading to their capture inside. The three groups of heroes gasped. It was Cyclops, breathing laboriously and limping unsteadily with each step. His clothes were disheveled and tattered, but underneath the tears there were marks and prints of burns, and he seemed be covered with bruises and lumps. His face was swollen with purple welts, and a trail of dry blood crossed the left side of his head. Scott kept his visor on the face, but his hands were handcuffed with some type of power-locker gadget.  
  
And behind of him and his keepers marched the pale-skinned, pink-suited Oracle, holding a redhead little girl crying loudly and piercingly. And StarBolt, enveloped in his flames of color orange and amber, carrying on his arms a brown-haired tiny boy, which was yelling him, insulting him and punching him as hard as his tiny fists allowed him.  
  
As the Terrans gazed horrified at Scott and the two kids, Lilandra shot a dirty and vicious leer at Gladiator, demanding silently a good explanation. She didn't tolerate her troops torture prisoners. Gladiator squirmed uncomfortably.  
  
"My apologies, Majestrix, but we couldn't help wound him. We obeyed yours instructions, but the captive battled with cleverness and frenzy. He took down and hurt ten soldiers, and the Imperial Guard had to gang up on him to overwhelm him. I have to acknowledge his bravery and worth like warrior."  
  
Lilandra shut sadly her eyes, and glanced sideways at Scott. It was a sorrowful, mortified expression. "True it is. Cyclops, you can't understand when quit, right?"  
  
Scott drilled her with a hot-melting glare behind the visor, and uttered a profanity. One of the soldiers moved forward, probably to slap him, but a Lilandra's warning look halted him instantly. Scott though kept 'glaring' defiantly behind his red lens. She held his look.  
  
"So the ruler of an Empire includes dozens of galaxies, admiral of a fleet of millions of battleships resorts to kidnap children with theirs parents if it suits her." A voice broke the stalemate. And there was something proud and harsh and stern in that battle-ravaged tone was impossible of ignoring.  
  
She turned around. The Captain America. It was the first time he'd uttered some word in that long while. Evidently the other two teams were remaining quiet as they tried making sense of the conversation, but that truce was over.  
  
"I don't resort to kidnap innocent kids, Captain" She said harshly, talking him as an equal. He wasn't technically, but confrontation wouldn't work out. "But I ordered the whole family was captured. It was necessary to ascertain if those children possess or not their mother's power-"  
  
"And those specimens are spawns of that Devil!" Ronan roared. "Why should we care for alien babies are potentially dangerous to our reign-"  
  
"My children aren't spawns of anything!" Scott grated, with a glower of savage and barely restrained rage. A dull glow glittered on his visor and the handcuffs hummed and sparked, nearly overloaded. Of sudden he took air slowly, and his countenance sobered completely. "Take care of never meeting me with my powers up, Kree. I don't allow somebody insults my family without paying it dearly."  
  
The entire crowd cheered encouragingly. Ronan glowered to all, but nobody paid attention to him.  
  
"Don't worry, Scott. You'll get your chance when we escape from this trap." Susan Richards stated matter-of-factly, with a tone her husband had learnt to fear. Inwardly she felt and understood the Scott's indignation. She was a mother, and the notion of someone might attack her little boy because he was 'potentially too dangerous' did her blood churning as lava. "We always do, after all."  
  
"Silence!" Lilandra shouted. She was losing the advantage and the direction of the conversation quickly, when she needed to keep tight and firm the control. "Don't try my patience, Terrans, with unfit insolence and self-righteousness. You have saved to Galactus, the Eater of Worlds, who is a menace nearly so colossal as Dark Phoenix, and you will be brought to trial for it. You remain in my custody till the judgment, but keep talking and I shall pass on the responsibility to the Krees and Skrulls. And they will be less kind than me."  
  
More than one hero wondered what was her concept of kindness, but they knew perfectly how sore were those aliens due to steady interference and constant humiliations, so nobody voiced it aloud.  
  
The Skrull Empress, who despised the petty and distasteful mindgames to goad to the prisoners, chose that moment to voice her opinion. She was masking a deep troubling.  
  
"I'm as eager as the Kree for court-martialing to the Earthians, but you forget something important, Lilandra. We need find to the Chaos-Bringer first and foremost. Our ships have circled and besieged the whole planet, but we have failed so far. She must be perfectly hidden."  
  
"We CAN deduce that, Skrull. Your point?" Ronan growled.  
  
"We must set on fire the lair's beast to force it to peek out its hideous head. Order your squads fire and raze the planet's cities to the ground and devastate its nations. Likewise will do my forces."  
  
The Terrans felt frostbite chilling them to the marrow and encasing their hearts in a block of solid ice, as if a blizzard had swept over them. That woman had ordered destroying their world with the nonchalance of who orders trim the turf. And she stood casually, gazing with cold haughtiness.  
  
In contrast, the Lilandra's face showed pure and horrified shock, blended with a dosage of indignation. "That wasn't our bargain! We allied forces to destroy the Dark Phoenix, not to a conquest campaign!"  
  
"Forget, dear Lilandra" Her interloper retorted grimly "Kree and Skrull alike are interested in this mudball for its strategic position, and we shall conquest it or crush it sooner or later, not matter what. And you fail in remembering, likewise, your own words: obliterating the entire stellar sector if it is required to destroy the Phoenix. Therefore, what is a planet? All the squads, fire!" She yelled.  
  
"For first time I agree with the green-skinned. All the ships, attack the planet!"  
  
Suddenly an earthquake rocked the floor's ship.  
  
Lilandra dropped on the floor, as looked at the origin of the tremors. Thor was straining the force field, stiffening each limb with effort. Brief sparks of electricity coursed his muscles, rippling beneath the taut skin. Swaying unsteadily on her four limbs, she screamed. "Give up, Thor! Would take a strength capable of crumpling this flight as a paper plane, shatter your prisons. And perhaps you own such power, but you and your allies would be at mercy of the space void."  
  
The muscular, sun-haired God ceased abruptly his struggle. She was right. Perhaps he might build up enough strength. And he could survive in space. But his comrades, his friends, were mortals.  
  
Seeing the rage-stricken Thor's countenance softening in a wounded and stunned expression, Lilandra felt relief warming her. Perhaps this wouldn't be so difficult after all.  
  
Of sudden a smaller window opened on the screen, displaying a Shi'Ar frigate's captain. The man's face was a mask of stark, sheer panic, and he moved shakily, as if all the devils of the Hell were chasing him. Lilandra raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Majestrix! Thanks to Sharra- Help- An emergency-!" The man stammered. Static distorted the transmission, warping the image and sound in a blurry picture and an annoying buzzing.  
  
"Calm down and breathe, captain!" She replied awkwardly. An unfamiliar sensation was chilling her blood. Panic. "What has happened?"  
  
"Destroyed- Crushed- The fireball- We're going to die!"  
  
"What has happened? Captain! Explain yourself!"  
  
The man didn't. The window blacked out, and another was opened in its place. Gigantic battleships covered the sky, and Lilandra deducted it was an image broadcast by the monitors from the frigate.  
  
Then she saw it. A thin string of surreal, intangible light shimmered weakly on the skyline, where the sight of hundreds of ships muddled in a black canvas. Then the pillar flashed, exploding in a massive fireball. Waves of dazzling light, scorching heat and blistering blazes rippled outwards, sucking and melting the ships hadn't been swatted or wrecked by the preceding shockwave. The tide of energy kept spreading and growing, annihilating the last ships and filling the screen with blinding brightness.  
  
And then darkness. The transmission cut off abruptly.  
  
Nobody said anything for endless seconds. The link with the Skrull and Kree motherships had also been cut off.  
  
Lilandra quickly taped some buttons on the control pad. "I want a visual of the planet and I want it now! She bellowed on the intercom.  
  
The droning voice of one of hers officers greeted her, and a picture of the planet was visualized on the screen. Her lower jaw dropped on the vicinity of her feet. On the orb there was a reddish vortex, woven with flames swirled quietly around of its epicenter on North America. As it spun around, the blazes lengthened in tongues of fire coiled around the planet, covering it as a protective cloak. Now the Earth seemed a globe of magma, and the army covering it had been consumed. She watched, paralyzed in horror, to the ships -including hers- streaking towards it, only to burn in the fire. As flies caught in a torch.  
  
The flares draping the planet danced and swirled gleefully, fed with the ships unwisely tried a kamikaze strike, and gradually steadied to themselves in a pattern. Everyone thought the shades and hues of the colorful fire formed a face. A hawk, an eagle, a raptor. Lilandra would vow it was glaring straight at her.  
  
"Let me put this straight" An inhuman voice thundered in the minds of everyone, echoing in each corner of the vault of their skulls. High-pitched and booming at once. "The Earth is my homeworld. Attack it and you will die. This is your first and only warning."  
  
The Shi'Ar Empress knew somehow than her associated Kree and Skrull, and her whole army, were hearing/receiving/feeling that imperious voice.  
  
As of its own volition, the picture on the screen shifted without anyone touching the monitor. Now it displayed a scene of the pitch-black void of the universe, with the milky light of countless dots on the background. An ordinary spatial scenery. But on the center was floating impossibly a redhead woman of unreal beauty, of thin and slender body but well-built frame, with her red and flaring strands swaying as underwater. Her stance was relaxed, even if she sported utter and grim seriousness on her stern face and her crossed arms. The color of her tight suit drifted permanently from green to red and green again.  
  
"I'm growing really tired from this pointless gambit." She grated. "Order your troops withdraw, Lilandra, release your prisoners and leave this stellar sector. Now. Before my patience wears out."  
  
"Or else what, Phoenix? Will you murder my kin as you did with the D'Bari IV people?"  
  
"Don't try pushing that on my, Lil. This time YOU are willing slaying billions of persons. And I'm protecting them from an undeserved death by someone who will stop on nothing to achieve her goals."  
  
"Deaths you would prevent submitting, Phoenix. I believed you bravery shone through the evil consuming you, but I was mistaken."  
  
"Immortal or not, I don't grant to my life more worth than anyone else's on the universe" She rebuked. "I didn't ever chose these powers; I was born with them and my death untapped them. When her use corrupted me, my mentor didn't help me; I submitted to yours trial and gave to your Guardsmen the chance of killing me. And they failed. I shan't pay for someone else's mistakes."  
  
"No, you will sacrifice lives to save yours, exercising a divine right, putting yourself above the rest-"  
  
"And you judged me and sentenced beforehand, without previous prosecution. To you, might give right. Right to take over and flatten planets, kidnap people and annihilate solar systems if you feel justified. Any means are acceptable if your accomplish the end." She retorted sharply. "Besides, it isn't only my life at stake. My family's opinion also counts. And my husband won't let me die, and my babies need their mother. I'll fight by them. Now do my bidding. Or I'll get violent."  
  
"Oh, yes?" Lilandra questioned. She didn't wish using that trump card, but she needed some leverage. Ruefully she thought Phoenix was right. Her moral was also questionable. "And what will you do? Implode my starship with the family you cares so much for within?"  
  
"Be careful, Lil." Scott interrupted. "NOBODY threats my children and gets away with it."  
  
Lilandra got her retort on the tongue's tip, but Phoenix beat her to it. She was waving disinterestedly an arm. "Calm down, Scott. She's really amusing, pretending her threats are real and you're her hostages. And she's naive believing she can get away unscathed with it. Chris, Ray, get rid of that bad people."  
  
A second later, Oracle felt her mental defenses crushed instantly and a hot pain piercing and burning in her head, like thousand acid-tipped needles stabbing her brain. Rachel disentangled herself of her embrace and landed on her feet, as the telepath alien lay sprawled on the floor.  
  
StarBolt was simply launched towards the wall and pierced its multiple layers of thick reinforced metal as a bullet the flesh, letting a hole of molten metal in his wake. The young Christopher Summers stood up softly and blew a lock of brown hair out his temple. Instinctively he enveloped his sister and himself in a telekinetic cloak.  
  
Gladiator immediately rushed to stop that outburst, but happened something as unexpected as sudden. A sticky and grey substance struck on his rough face, blinding him, and while he was unbalanced and trying ungluing it, a dark shadow slid swiftly out of an open panel on the ceiling and struck his chest and windpipe with both feet. Gladiator went down noisily.  
  
"Spidey!" Squealed Johnny Storm, as surprised as pleased. Spider-Man turned at his old friend, grinning beneath his red mask, and spun around swiftly to knock out the remainder soldiers attacking him. His spider-sense blared violently and he whirled around again to shoot his thick webbing on Lilandra, who was aiming a weapon at him. After adhering her to one wall with a coat of quickly-hardening fluid, his fists cracked the manacles shut the Cyclops' power off.  
  
"Hurry up!" The mutant shouted. "Do you know where the power core is?"  
  
"No, but Ben says that in doubt break everything you see." Spider-Man shouted back.  
  
"Ah, I taught him well" The Thing, Human Torch, Hawkeye and Iceman muttered together, approvingly.  
  
Free of ties restricted his power, Scott blasted arcs of unrestrained power everywhere, as his kids crouched protectively behind him. Crimson beams plunged deep in the mainframe, shattering mechanisms, ripping apart machinery and slashing frayed wires. Machines exploded, spraying a killer shower of electrical and metallic debris.  
  
And in the chaos and the noise nobody listened to Cyclops whispering quickly to Spider-Man.  
  
"How did you manage come up here?" He asked, suspecting already.  
  
"Your lady ran into my own redhead bombshell and me and she asked my help. I was glad of obliging"  
  
Scott smiled and kept unleashing and launching beams. Suddenly, the glittering light of the field froze to the heroes wavered unsteadily. Then, with a last shower of sparks, it turned off.  
  
The heroes broke violently out of their prisons, feeling the soreness on theirs cramped muscles was drowned with rage and revenge wishes.  
  
"IT'S TIME FOR CLOBBERING!"  
  
"I wouldn't have expressed it better, Ben!" Mr. Fantastic screamed, stretching his body.  
  
"Those villains will feel the full weight of the wrath of an outraged God!" Thor seethed, clutching his hammer spasmodically.  
  
"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!" The Captain America, more practical than his friend, bellowed.  
  
"X-MEN, ATTACK!" Xavier commanded.  
  
"What Chuck says!" Logan hopped forward, unsheathing his claws.  
  
Thor hurled Mjolnir towards the armored doorway, as Storm, Human Torch and Iron Man shot bolts of lightning and flames and energy. The gate shriveled and disintegrated as a wilted flower, and the heroes bolted through the shaft to battle the aliens. Howls of pain and begs for mercy filled the air outside.  
  
And in the chamber, now a desert wasteland, only four persons remained, forgotten on the mayhem. Lilandra, who remained gagged and glued to the wall, and Scott, with his children clutching fistfuls of his leggings. He stood motionless, gazing silently at the air with his jaw set on a firm line and his arms crossed. Almost like if he waited for something.  
  
Air rippled and shimmered, and a flickering ember faded in existence. It hovered airborne quietly.  
  
"There're more important things than power, right, godhood or immortality, Lilandra" A bodiless, musical voice reverberated softly. "Like feel emotions of love, hate, pain, joy, desire and innocence."  
  
The flame grew in a roaring bonfire, and it coalesced in the shape of a woman. Jean. She put off her fires, and she found to herself wrapped in the embrace of her family. Scott clutching her, drawing her in his chest, and each one of her children clinging to one leg.  
  
"Like a family to love and be loved." Phoenix talked, sobbing out of happiness.  
  
"... And thus, Our Empires vow solemnly never attack, invade or conquer the Earth, and respect the integrity of the planet as well as the existence and freedom of the living beings inhabit its surface..."  
  
And blah, blah, blah, Scott thought spitefully, his face unable of masking a bitter grimace. The Earth's heroes had managed, after a long struggle and a tough battle, triumph over the alien army. Of course they had used the intelligence, and as Jean blew up hundreds of battleships and a myriad of star skimmers, they had raided the motherships, capturing the leaders and forcing the surrender. Now they were assembled to force to Shi'Ar, Kree and Skrull to sign a formal treaty peace. The Professor, Mr. Fantastic and Captain America had been very insistent on it -mainly The Cap, since he thought send it to the UN if it was necessary-, and The Avengers had even teleported to She-Hulk so she checked the validity of the paper.  
  
Wet. Wet paper. As far as Scott was concerned -and he was sure of his friends shared his hesitations and skepticism- that document wasn't worth of the medium where it was recorded. The Skrull were the most betrayer and conniving race of the known cosmos, the Kree would find some loophole or technicality to violate it, and the Shi'Ar... Fine, Lilandra hardly lied and her empire wasn't interested in the Earth, but her royal pride had been wounded, and some zealot general could take matters on his or her own hands.  
  
As the group was circling the table, he edged away quietly, heading for the door, and linking hands with Christopher and Rachel, he slid out of the chamber. Other than the procedure was hugely boring, he couldn't bear the tension each time someone -mainly his former teammates- looked at his general direction. They said nothing, but theirs silent, inquiring stares... Wondering. Hesitating. Demanding. Accusing.  
  
Weighing on to him, suffocating his breath, choking him in an unbearable claw of doubt and betrayal and mistrust. He had to get away. It was time for leaving.  
  
Besides, what did they want of him? Yes, Alex, I knew Madelyne was Jean. Yes, Warren, Jean is alive. Yes, Bobby, I knew from a start. No, Hank, that 'me' was an illusion. No, Professor, she revealed it to her family. No, Logan, your opinion on it doesn't give me a damn.  
  
She was the woman he loved. Not matter her power, not matter the risk, not matter the past, he loved her with his entire self, till the death and beyond. And he had betrayed, lied and run away for that love. She never tried forcing him, but he did nevertheless. Perhaps it was wrong or bad. But hadn't she always said his love had saved the universe? What it made her feel human, filling her with human emotions?  
  
Besides, she was his responsibility. He hadn't allowed her suicide, so she survived for him. While the X-Men grieved and Lilandra remained in the Earth, they lay low in the Northwest. The 'Scott' attended to the service was only a convincing construct of psychic energy, pretty believable to convince to Logan or the Professor, a puppet vanished in thin air after it achieved its purpose.  
  
But they couldn't run away eternally. The perfect occasion came when Dad offered to Alex and him meet theirs grandparents. When they arrived to Alaska, she had forged a new identity, a past, a curriculum and even had modified slightly her looks and mannerisms to perfect the mask. Thus, Alex and Dad saw him gape amazed at the redhead pilot named Madelyne Prior. They could witness she was another person he had just met, with an uncanny likeness to Jean. Perfect. And living in Alaska, far from the X-Men, there were little chances of they finding out.  
  
And then Lilandra blew out the entire façade. Now they ought to settle on facing their friends or pulling a vanishing act, making a new life in a new site where nobody found them...  
  
He navigated along the meandering passageways, whiling away until Jean fetched them, when he spotted him. Oh, great. He had actually missed him in the reunion. Leaned on a corner, in his characteristic stance. Relaxed but prepared to attack. Staring severely with his brown-and-black cowl drawn backwards. Scott considered walk past him, but...  
  
"What do you want, Logan?" He growled. "Any questions?"  
  
"How you make out the signs on a traffic light." He shrugged noncommittally. "No, Cyke. I'm not pulling the truth out of you. I'm actually thinking over the last eight years and making my own conclusions. But I want telling you... not matter my personal stance on this, I understand why you needed protect to Jeannie and couldn't let them take her away."  
  
Scott regarded him thoughtfully a moment. Then he nodded. "Thanks, Logan. Good-bye."  
  
"Good-bye, Scott."  
  
Scott and his two children marched wonderingly past him. He dwelt on his words, mulling on theirs implied meaning, and feeling a curious surge of... delight. Who would have thought-  
  
A touch brushed his mind. And he sensed her presence like if she was there already. "Jean? Is it over?"  
  
"Yes, honey. It is. We can go back to home. To our lives"  
  
With a flash of flames, Phoenix stood up in front of him, hands crossed innocently behind her waist. Scott hoisted both children around his arms and neared to her. Her lips skimmed over his mouth in a strawberry-flavored kiss, and fire embraced him. Dark crimson, nearly black blazes blossomed out of her and shrouded them in a fireball.  
  
Flames vibrated and vanished. After their departure, had only left silence on the lonely corridor.  
  
END 


End file.
